Electronic devices, including portable electronic devices, have gained widespread use and can provide a variety of functions including, for example, telephonic, electronic messaging and other personal information manager (PIM) application functions. Portable electronic devices can include several types of devices including mobile stations such as simple cellular telephones, smart telephones, wireless PDAs, and laptop computers with wireless 802.11 or Bluetooth capabilities.
Devices such as PDAs or smart telephones are generally intended for handheld use and ease of portability. Smaller devices are generally desirable for portability. Touch screen assemblies constructed of a display, such as a liquid crystal display, with a touch-sensitive overlay are useful on such handheld devices as these handheld devices are small and are therefore limited in space available for user input and output devices. Further, the screen content on the touch screen devices can be modified depending on the functions and operations being performed. Touch screen devices that provide tactile feedback are particularly advantageous for providing positive feedback upon selection of a feature on the touch screen.
Such portable electronic devices are commonly mistakenly dropped and may be damaged as a result. Design of devices to protect device components in the event of a drop is desirable.